Cancer / radiation

[LeedsRhinos]

How can it be that radiation can both cause and help cure cancer?

[Hippy]

"Radiation" is a catch all phrase for various different types of electromagnetic energy, some types of which are more dangerous than others, but all have an effect on living tissue. For example, light is visible, but fairly benign, Microwave and Infra-red warms us up, but could if powerful enough destroy us, and Ultra-violet singes our cells and can cause cancer by interfering with the DNA in cells and causing them to reproduce without hindrance in a mutated form.

 

As the frequency increases, so different forms of radiation become more dangerous as the penetration into the body's tissues increases. The same thing occurs, the cell's blueprint for duplication becomes damaged and mutated cells then multiply. Normally, extreme mutations are prevented by a sort of "suicide" gene that destroys individual cells that become wildly different, but radiation can stop this from working and cause the uncontrolled proliferation of cancerous cells.

 

The "good" radiation in hospital is designed to be a sort of finely tuned "zapper" ray that the doctors point at the effected area. It works by being very concentrated and intense and seeks to destroy the cells that it encounters. The rays are supposed to be so focussed that nearby cells are not exposed to the milder dose that would cause the cancer to form. It is just a question of degree. X-Rays are very low intensity and pass through body tissues in varying amounts relative to the density of the tissue. The rays then hit photographic plates to form an image. Even over exposure to X-rays is dangerous, and workers hide behind protective lead screens when using the equipment.

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[Hippy]

Some other forms of radiation, like gamma rays, come from nuclear reactions and the Sun. In a further type, tiny particles broken off from the atom's nucleus hurtle through space and bombard us. These can also have the same effect as radiation, but most are blocked by the atmosphere. Even so, many millions of these tiny bits pass through us every day and can be detected deep underground as they slip between the huge gaps in the molecular structure of our bodies and the Earth.

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[LeedsRhinos]

Thanks Hippy for that